On Esther’s Tragic Pilgrimage For Self-actualization In The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), labeled as an outstanding confessional poet in themid-twentieth-century, is also an extraordinary novelist.Since Plath was introduced into China, her works has attracted wide attention. Relativecritics and comments about her poems poured in, while her novel comparatively was ignored.Almost all the critics tended to focus on her poems, and few people paid attention to theimportance of her novel, regarding it as just a life background or reference for understandingthose poems.However, this unbalanced study is not appropriate. Although The Bell Jar was her onlynovel in her writing career, the influence on the readers throughout the world is far-reaching.In fact, it is not only a record of Plath’s personal experience and spiritual journey, but also aminiature of women’s living situation in that specific era. This is a fact which has long beenoverlooked and whose significance has therefore not been sufficiently appreciated.Why did both the protagonist in the novel and the author have suicidal attempt whenthey were so young with so many dreams still waiting for them to realize? What were theunderlying causes that forced them to make choices between life and death? It is really a mythdeserving our probing.This paper attempts to cast Abraham H. Maslow’s theory of self-actualization and thatof hierarchy of needs on the interpretation of The Bell Jar. Through the exploration ofEsther’s tough pilgrimage for self-actualization, it tends to probe into the profoundexplanation for both the protagonist and the author’s tragic ending.Accordingly, it can be divided into three chapters. In Chapter One, Esther, who wishedto gain self-identification through writing, was a promising girl bearing all kinds of fanatics inmind. As she experienced the anxiety of marginality as a woman, Esther poured all her hopeinto her sole weapon--pen, attempting to create her ideal self through writing so as to win theidentification in the patriarchal society.In Chapter Two, Esther’s daydream was disillusioned, so she retreated to her idealworld and was labeled as a mad woman. In order to gain self-redemption, she turned todeconstruct male gaze and posed her own questioning and reflection toward the patriarchal order with the shelter of “madness”.In Chapter Three, Esther’s struggle all turned to be futile exploration, and she found noway out. Frustration and desperation haunted over her mind. She was forced to go to extremesat last and wished to achieve final self-actualization through suicidal attempt. Actually, in hereyes, death does not mean an end but a path to eternal return. The tomb, to some extent,equals the womb.Although the protagonist and the author’s suicidal attempt for final self-actualization isnot advisable, their constant struggle for self-actualization does deserve our probing andreflection. Their perseverance of self-actualization and the meditation on life and death in thenovel is a spontaneous overflow from Plath’s heart. They make the most part of her myth bothin art and authentic life. Although both the author and the protagonist went to extremes at last,their courage of challenging conventionality and authority demonstrated the core concept offeminism and definitely lived up to the title of “pioneer”,“woman warrior” etc. At least, theyyelled out their voices with their pens and even their lives. In addition, their confusion andfrustration during their pilgrimage for self-actualization is also enlightening for the modernwomen who still have to deal with similar problems.In short, reading The Bell Jar from the angle of women’s self-actualization can not onlyserve as a feminist approach to researching the novel, but also a sound interpretation of theauthor’s female writing and female experience, thus providing new references for the study ofPlath and her works.